We're trying something new with our audio cast of the program Being Mortal, which aired

on February 10th and is available for online viewing anytime at Frontline.org.

It's been adapted just for audio by radio producers John B.Win and Lou Olkowski, and

told first person by producer director Tom Jennings.

Let us know what you think of this podcast by using the hashtag Frontline PBS on Facebook

and Twitter or email us at Frontline at PBS.org.

I'm Tom Jennings, a producer for Frontline.

For the past two years, I've worked with a surgeon and writer, a tool Gwondi, on a film

inspired by his book Being Mortal.

It explores how people, patients, and doctors deal with aging and dying.

I was especially interested in this belief that doctors, with the best of intentions, can

inflict suffering at the end of life.

Therapies intended to help might actually hasten death, and hospitalizations for crises

are often a last desperate attempt to hold on.

A tool saw many patients get checked into the hospital and never leave, never having a

chance to say their goodbyes.

How can we have good days to the end?

We didn't focus on that enough.

What was most striking, a tool Gwondi implicated himself.

He was part of the problem.

He wanted to do better.

Here was a case which I could unpack enough to understand why do we always go off the

...